


Heart and Soul

by road_of_ruin



Series: Spark [3]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mech Preg, One-Sided Relationship, Sort Of, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 10:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12862218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/road_of_ruin/pseuds/road_of_ruin
Summary: After saving Optimus' life with the Forge, the affection Smokescreen had felt forming between them seems to have cut out. He just wishes that were the least of his worries.Follow up to Show and Tell, standalone, Smokescreen POV.





	Heart and Soul

**Author's Note:**

> I want to make a note that the 'mech preg' is very loose here. It's certainly not what is usually seen when the tag is in use, but close enough that I felt prudent to use it. The type of 'mech preg' this is is inspired by the amazing fic A Mote in His Eye by MonkeysInPants.
> 
> ALSO: this is part of a series, but can very much be read as a standalone.

It was, of course, an injury that brought it all crashing down. That tended to be the only way the team took a notice of him outside his cheerful visage, that he wasn’t as happy and go lucky as he wanted them to believe he was all the time, and especially nowadays. With the new base and the new team structure, Smokescreen was very much riding the bottom rungs of… well, everything. And maybe that should’ve bothered him, but. Well.

It was hard to dislike any situation that really gave him time to think. Even if a part of him was very nearly screaming on the inside, wanting to leave base, to go outside, to be _useful,_ the rest of him after _that_ needed to think. To plot. To hide.

But naturally, he wasn’t nearly as good as fighting with a full mind as he was moving empty energon crates, so here he was in Ratchet’s med berths, the picture of useless rookie, and trying not to flinch under the glower the medic was pinning him with.

A treacherous part of his mind whispered uncomfortably of how the last time he’d been injured, his Prime seemed loathe to leave him. That injury had almost been some sort of bridge between them, and he knew he hadn’t been imagining the fondness and care Optimus had shown, all the way to the near end before Smokescreen had saved him. Now, however, it wasn’t even Optimus that was asking about him, but a grim faced Ultra Magnus, who accepted Ratchet’s curt answers and immediately went back to the group to report. Most likely that Smokescreen was an idiot but wouldn’t die, so they still had backup.

Optimus didn’t even look over and Smokescreen vented sadly, doorwings drooping, and tried to ignore the pain in his spark and, even more, the dull echo of emotions orbiting his own that should _not,_ by any right, be there. He touched a shaking servos to his chest as though to shield the light, which was altogether a terrible idea, given Ratchet noticed immediately from where he was focused on the smoking hole in Smokescreen’s leg.

“Are you experiencing abdominal pain?” Ratchet asked, all business, and Smokescreen knew his face was panicked, even as he tried for his best soldier tone to give the denial. It was obvious he wasn’t believed, but Ratchet didn’t demand someone bring him some tool or another, or worse, call Optimus over to question him. Instead, he focused hard on Smokescreen through narrowed eyes and moved off towards the group.

Smokescreen’s vision nearly went white with panic when he realized Ratchet was, instead, going to _Optimus,_ but before he could find the nearest escape route, he heard the doctor’s voice, pointedly a tad too loud so Smokescreen could hear it.

“He’ll be fine,” Ratchet said curtly, all business, “but he’s out for today, at the very least. Go back to your patrols. I’ll patch him up as best I can. He could technically still fight on it, but I’d appreciate it if you kept back up calls to emergencies.”

For the briefest of moments, Optimus looked over, his face a mask the way it’d never been towards him before, and Smokescreen felt like melting right into the floor. Then the gaze was gone and so were the rest of the team, leaving him with Ratchet and the children, who had already moved to the walkway over the medical side of the base to peer at him curiously.

“Let’s get that leg patched up,” Ratchet said, returning to work, though there was something in his voice that hadn’t been there before, and Smokescreen didn’t know the doctor well enough to know the nuance of it or what it meant. He generally was just happy to have a conversation with the doctor that didn’t involve shouting.

“Thanks, Ratchet, sir,” Smokescreen mumbled, staring at the floor, which was safer than looking up at all the eyes that had come to gawk.

Ratchet muttered something as he grabbed his welding torch. “I can fix your leg, but I can’t do anything for that broken heart you’re sporting,” he said plainly. “I feel I should say something about aiming too high, but then again, it is _you.”_

Smokescreen flinched as though Ratchet had punched him clean off the berth. As it was, he stayed quiet and guilty as Ratchet welded the wound shut, then hooked him to a machine that supplied medicine and monitored his vitals all in one.

“Wait, broken heart?” Miko asked, her head tilted to the side. “You’re crushing on someone, Smoke?”

The other two children gave her a look, more than likely about her lack of tact, but it was oddly refreshing. No sense in beating around the bush, after all, and he knew Ratchet wouldn’t pry. And he couldn’t deny that the prospect of getting out at least one of the secrets he’d held for so long, a very real source of pain, was a sort of relief he knew he needed. Wounds had to be breathed, Alpha Trion had told him once, and wounds on the inside were no different.

“I don’t want to crush anyone but the Cons,” Smokescreen said, still confused about that very human phrase. “But if that means what I think you meant, then… yes?”

She squealed in delight and Jack rolled his eyes, though Raf was now looking at him in interest. “Arcee?” he guessed, making Jack sputter.

“No,” Smokescreen said quickly, figuring he could’ve used it as an out, but didn’t think he could stomach lying to such eager faces. And besides, it was clear Ratchet was onto him anyway. He’d see through the lie and make Smokescreen feel even guiltier than he already did and he _definitely_ couldn’t stomach that.

“Bee?” Miko shot out even more excitedly, making Raf’s eyes go wide. At Jack’s incredulous look, she just waved her arms in the air like she was doing a victory dance. “Just think of it, Racer Boyfriends!”

“Uh, no,” Smokescreen found a laugh and it felt somehow torn out of him, rusty, like he hadn’t laughed in a long while. As it stood, he honestly couldn’t quite remember when he’d done so last. Between Ultra Magnus’ no-nonsense expectations and Optimus’ chilly silence, there were hardly any urges to laugh anyway.

“Someone not in the group?” Jack ventured when Miko had stopped pouting. Always the diplomatic one, Jack. Smokescreen couldn’t help but think Cybertron had lost a first rate Prime-to-be in the human, had he’d been born a bot. Certainly better than Smokescreen could ever be.

“...no,” Smokescreen said, eyeing Ratchet warily. The medic didn’t spare him a glance, looking at the data coming through, and he breathed in relief.

At Miko’s gasp, however, he looked back up, tense once more. Had she guessed?

“You like _Ratchet?”_ she nearly shrieked, and that was so hilarious he actually managed to laugh.

Ratchet spluttered indignantly and Smokescreen quickly shook his head before the medic could start a rampage. “No, definitely not Ratchet!” he promised them all. “It’s -”

He stopped himself, feeling torn open, and once more settled his servos over his spark, feeling that ancient sounding echo that wasn’t his own and the crushing guilt that seemed to follow every time he did so.

“...it’s Optimus, isn’t it?” It was Raf who guessed, his little brows furrowed in that way they did whenever he was thinking on a hard math problem, or detailing a particularly extensive code for Ratchet. The other two jolted in surprise, then seemed to concentrate even harder on Smokescreen, assessing him, more than likely reading the guilt in his expression. He didn’t even need to say yes, he could tell by how their faces softened in sympathy, but nodded anyway.

“As I said,” Ratchet huffed, eyeing the way Smokescreen was touching his chest plates with a frown, “aiming too high.”

“I know,” Smokescreen sighed, his doorwings drooping even lower. He wanted to curl up and disappear, or bolt out of base and drive until he couldn’t drive anymore. But he couldn’t, not without causing a scene, and not without jeopardizing the team. So he sat, feeling like a thief, and shut his optics to keep from seeing the looks on the children’s faces.

“I don’t think so,” Raf said meekly, making Smokescreen open his eyes again. “I mean, Optimus is still just a bot the way everyone else is. Sure, he’s important, but i think…” he wilted a bit at the glare Ratchet shot him and hurriedly finished, “i think it’s nice that someone can see under the titles and just care for him as he is…? Maybe?”

Ratchet vented loudly. “But still, a foolish enterprise,” he said, shaking his head at Smokescreen. “Surely you know his spark is no longer his own to give away? A Prime cannot easily Bond with anyone, and especially not in the middle of a war!”

“I _do_ know,” Smokescreen said, defensive. “If you think I don’t consider that every time i _look_ at him, you’re wrong.”

Ratchet’s mouth tightened into a grim line, eyes narrowing as Smokescreen, once more, touched the plating over his spark, and moved off to look over the data again, muttering under his breath.

Smokescreen didn’t quite notice, looking up at Raf in gratitude. “I know,” he said again, much quieter this time, “that it’ll never amount to anything, but that doesn’t stop how I feel. I just… want to care for him, even if….”

 _Even if he can’t stand me now,_ he wanted to say, but felt his throat close around the words. He looked away, shaking his head, letting the children interpret that unfinished sentence however they wanted.

“But, you saved his life!” Miko said, as if that meant something. “That’s, like, the path to true love right there, isn’t it?”

“Miko,” Jack hissed in warning, making her pout at him in question. They had an argument in harsh whispers that Smokescreen couldn’t hear, but was more focused on Raf anyway, who sat down on the ledge of the platform, legs dangling over the edge, arms resting on the railing.

“I noticed he’s been… different,” Raf offered in sympathy. “I’m sure it’s not you, Smokescreen. It’s the war and the Predacon, and the loss of the Omega Lock.”

Smokescreen’s spark pulled painfully at that reminder and looked away. _That wouldn’t be a problem,_ that dark part of his mind hissed, _if you had actually followed orders. You saved Optimus at the cost of an entire planet. What a horrible Prime you would make._ “Yeah,” he heard himself say, as though from a distance, “yeah, you’re probably right.”

He was aware of the children exchanging worried glances with each other as a silence passed, with just the humming of the vitals machine to fill the void and the sound of Ratchet typing. But then Ratchet’s vents blew out harshly and he was suddenly waving a scanner in Smokescreen’s face, expression determined.

“Open your chestplate,” he demanded and Smokescreen’s world tipped over in utter panic all over again.

“What?” he tired to play it cool. “I wasn’t hurt in the -”

“ _Now_!”

Smokescreen looked panickedly at the data screen, wondering if there _was_ something wrong he hadn’t known about for Ratchet to be suddenly ordering him about like this, but what he saw only completed his panic and he went utterly still.

“Ratch…”

“Smokescreen, I will only ask you one more time,” Ratchet hissed and somehow managed to convey concern even through his furious command. With a sigh and shaking hands, Smokescreen complied, unable to look at him - or any of them really - as he bared himself.

He watched the data screen instead, watched the tiny mote of light dancing about his spark, knowing it was playing in real time and that the medic, as well as the children, could see the secret he’d carried for weeks. Ratchet inhaled sharply and dropped his scanner, eyes wide in awe and shock.

“By the Allspark,” he breathed.

“What… what _is_ that?” Jack asked, eyes just as wide.

“It’s _adorable!”_ Miko gasped, looking excited.

But instead of answering, Ratchet took a step back, slowly shaking his head. “How?” he demanded of Smokescreen, eyes locked on that happily floating mote.

“I don’t know,” Smokescreen confessed, the words ripped out of his very circuits. But it was the truth, at least, and felt like release. He _didn’t_ know. “I didn’t… _plan_ for it,” he stressed, knowing Ratchet would understand.

“Obviously not,” Ratchet said, as if that had never been in question. Which it hadn’t, because Optimus would never impart a part of his own spark to anyone, let alone a screw up like Smokescreen. Smokescreen told himself that didn’t hurt, but some of his pain must have been visible in his expression because he could see Ratchet mentally recalculating his next question into something far more gentle. “When?”

“I noticed it about two weeks ago,” Smokescreen admitted. “After what happened with Optimus and the Forge.”

Ratchet considered that as he retrieved his fallen scanner and scanned over the little mote that glittered in its orbit of Smokescreen’s spark. “Was your spark bared at any time?” he asked, sounding genuinely wonder struck.

“No,” Smokescreen said immediately, then paused, seeing what the doctor was getting at. “But… Optimus’ was.” He prayed to Primus that Ratchet would simply assume it was due to a wound and not because Optimus had nearly given a third-rate rookie the Matrix of Leadership.

“Ratchet?” Raf asked before Miko could explode with the questions she obviously wanted to ask. “What is it? Is Smokescreen okay?”

“He’s fine,” Ratchet said with another slow shake of his head. “More than fine.”

“Then, what is it?” Jack asked his question again.

“Before I answer the ‘what’,” Ratchet told the children, “I need to understand the _how._ Smokescreen,” he said, turning back to him, “what exactly happened when you put the Forge in Optimus’ hand to heal him?”

“There was a sort of… energy surge?” Smokescreen said, wanting very much to close his chest plates and hide away his little miracle mote for safe keeping, even if he felt so very guilty for having it. “Strong enough to send me flying.”

“That must’ve been it, then,” Ratchet said and it was a surprising amount of relief that filled Smokescreen at this.

“Yeah?”

“Most definitely. If his spark chamber was bared, it stands to reason that a speck of his spark was dislodged in the energy blast and sent towards you. Sparks migrate to sparks. It’s not a stretch to imagine it went to your spark for safe keeping.”

That made sense, even if it hurt a little to think it hadn’t been something like fate or destiny wanting him to have just this tiny part of the Prime that didn’t want anything to do with him outside of the mission. Of course it’d just been an accident, a random happenstance. It’s not like Optimus had given it freely and Smokescreen hadn’t taken it, no matter his guilt. It felt good to know there was a logical explanation for it, even if the odds were imperceptible in its favor.

“A miracle,” Ratchet breathed in awe, following Smokescreen’s thoughts.

“Wait, wait, wait, are you saying Smokey is _pregnant?”_ Miko said, wide eyed.

Smokescreen tilted his head at that word. For all he’d taken in human language, that one hadn’t yet come up.

“You know, big belly, nine months and then birth?” Miko said by way of explanation, which only confused him further.

Ratchet looked just as confused, and quickly waved that off as typical human nonsense. “If you are referring to reproduction, Cybertronians do _not…”_ he seemed too flustered to even finish that sentence.

“But if you mean carrying a young life then… sort of?” Smokescreen supplied and it felt all too real to be saying it aloud. “A piece of Optimus’ spark is inside mine. It has the potential to make a new spark, but that’ll take time.”

“How much time?” Jack asked, copying Raf by sitting on the ledge, eyeing him with concern and interest.

“Centuries,” Ratchet said. “The odds of this happening are _infinitesimal,_ and to a warrior? Unheard of.”

“Not really,” Smokescreen said, aware of the children’s growing confusion but wanting to set the record straight. “Carriers were a certain type in the Golden Age, but by the time of the Fall, there was no time to be picky. I think anyone has a chance of it from my generation. If we wanted Cybertron to live on through new life, we’d have to be.”

Ratchet considered that with a harsh vent, but didn’t argue.

“Carriers?” Jack asked.

“Bots with certain… attributes, i suppose you could say, that make them more susceptible to creating new sparks,” Ratchet said, staring at the mote inside Smokescreen with something almost like longing in his gaze. “In the Golden Age, there were a select group of them, but it stands to reason Smokescreen is right, and that it would be more prudent for even warriors to have the chance of carrying new life. After all, in a time of war, a stronger shield is needed to defend the most innocent.”

“So… he really _is_ pregnant,” Miko said, not giving up on that, it seemed. “In the Cybertronian way.”

Ratchet sighed. “I suppose,” he allowed, though it was more to make her stop pushing the point then actually agreeing, Smokescreen was sure. “More pressing matter is, what do we do about it?”

Smokescreen felt that panic grip him again and his vitals spiked on the data screen. “You can’t tell Optimus,” he breathed, nearly a whimper, even though he tried for stern. “Please, Ratchet, you can’t. This can’t change anything.”

“It most certain _can!”_ Ratchet argued. “You’re carrying new life!”

“No, I’m carrying a tiny shred of someone else’s spark,” Smokescreen shot back. “It won’t be new life for centuries, you said it yourself. We’re at war, Ratchet. I can’t _not_ fight!”

The look on Ratchet’s face clearly said how much he disagreed with that, but thankfully Jack came to his rescue.

“He’s right, Ratch,” the boy said softly. “Even if you kept him on bed rest, there’s no saying what’ll happen to him a century from now. Or the century after.”

“And Team Prime can’t afford to lose him!” Miko defended too, flopping down between her friends. “We need all the bots we have.”

Raf nodded slowly. “If it’s just a bit of spark right now, it’s not in any danger, is it?” he asked quietly. “I mean, not in any more danger than any other spark here.”

Ratchet looked ready to argue, but sighed in defeat. “Fine, fine, but I’m still monitoring you, _daily,”_ he huffed, poking Smokescreen hard on the forehead. “The first hint I get that this little spark in you is taking on a more independent pattern, you _will_ be pulled out of Team Prime, do you understand me?”

Smokescreen nodded, knowing he had a good century at least, which eased some of his guilt that at least he wouldn’t be a burden. But that still left one door far too open for his liking, and he stared down at the tiny mote in his chest with a sadness he felt deep in every circuit of himself. “And… Optimus?”

“I should tell him,” Ratchet said firmly, “but I will not. Not until it becomes prudent to do so. You are carrying a miracle of science within you, but you _are_ right. It’s nothing more than a bit of light right now. It shouldn’t stop you from helping the cause, which is what I fear Optimus would demand of you should I tell him.”

“Thank you,” Smokescreen nearly melted into the berth in relief, shaking and scared. “Just… thank you.”

Ratchet softened just a little and nodded, a servos lifting to clasp Smokescreen’s shoulder. Whether in comfort or support, he wasn’t sure, but he was grateful all the same.

“Just remember that you are carrying the future inside you,” the medic murmured. “Telling you to be careful is foolish given we are in the middle of a war, but remember it nonetheless. Everything you feel will go into that tiny spark. It’s a part of you now, but separate enough that what you do and feel will affect it. Be mindful and take care and I’ll do my best to see you through this.”

Smokescreen closed his eyes and nodded, feeling the smiles of the children even as they agreed to this sentiment and just breathed. He felt the little mote like a pearl of calm, an echo of his Prime, and drew strength from it, trying to overcome his guilt to the awe he should’ve felt for it a long time ago.

Optimus would never love him, he knew that, had always known, yet somehow he’d been given this part of the Prime’s heart to hold and keep close. And he would do just that. Whether or not he lived long enough to see it become more than it was wasn’t the point. The point was it was a part of him in the now, and it was a part of Optimus, and maybe he was a thief for hiding it away and keeping it, but he wasn’t about to turn this away. He’d ruined things with Optimus, maybe, but he at least had this, and that warmed him all the way to his soul.

He could be strong, he realized. He _would_ be strong. He would be worthy of this tiny little promise of a future, no matter the cost.

“Thank you,” he told them all, chest plates closing and his servos resting protectively over his spark, and felt a new resolve growing inside him as what was once a bleak road ahead of him brightened to one that was no longer a solo path to take. “I won’t let you down.”


End file.
